After years of legal battling, Commonwealth Court handed Triple Crown Corp. another defeat Tuesday for its plan to build up to 449 housing units on the former Stray Winds Farm in Lower Paxton Township.

A panel of state judges sided with a ruling by Dauphin County Judge Scott A. Evans, who found the developer had not proven any hardship that would justify the construction of so many units on the 246-acre site.

Marijon Shearer, The Patriot-News

Yet Harry Ulsh, the neighbor who mounted the court challenge against the development, didn't live to see his victory. Ulsh died in April 2013 and his wife, June, took up the legal fight.

Tuesday's ruling is the latest of three decisive state court rulings in the Stray Winds dispute. Commonwealth Court upheld a similar challenge by another neighbor, Andrew Snyder, in 2009 and the state Supreme Court later refused to hear Triple Crown's appeal of the Snyder ruling.

In essence, the latest Commonwealth Court decision in the Ulsh case reinforces the legal findings that Triple Crown didn't demonstrate hardships that would justify a zoning variance for a full build-out of the Stray Winds project, which extends into Susquehanna Township.

When the firm first proposed the project nearly a decade ago, zoning for the property limited development there to 374 housing units.

While the court battles have raged, the bulldozers have been inactive, even though Triple Crown received township approvals that would have allowed construction to begin.

In seeking permission to build 449 units, Triple Crown argued that the topography of the property, which has wetlands, flood plains and steep slopes in spots, constituted a hardship meriting a zoning variance. It also promised to fund $1.8 million in local road improvements if its full build-out proposal was sanctioned.

The township zoning hearing board initially disagreed, but it waited too long to issue a ruling on the variance request so Triple Crown's plea was approved by default. The Snyder and Ulsh appeals followed.

The legal battle in the Ulsh case was fought out in two phases. In 2011, Commonwealth Court sent the matter back to Evans for reconsideration after concluding he did not fully spell out his reasons for initially backing Ulsh in the dispute. When he took up the case again, Evans sided with Ulsh a second time, finding that Triple Crown hadn't made a hardship case for a zoning variance.

Triple Crown then appealed the matter back to Commonwealth Court, which again upheld Evans' decision in Tuesday's opinion written by Judge Mary Hannah Levitt.

The state judges also turned aside arguments by Triple Crown that Harry Ulsh lacked legal standing to press the legal challenge and that June Ulsh should not have been allowed to continue the case after his death.

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